After the U.S. market closed on Tuesday, the value of Apple topped $500 billion amid reports the iPad 3 launch is imminent. The company is now worth more in dollar terms than most countries’ gross domestic product and joins a very exclusive club of companies that have been valued, at some point, at more than half a trillion dollars.

As traders from Shanghai to New York debate whether the Apple rally has legs 2,000 members of another exclusive club are meeting in Singapore and could find themselves talking to the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.

The Young Presidents Organization (YPO) is an alliance of 19,000 entrepreneurs, business leaders and CEOs whose companies’ combined annual revenue of $6 trillion far outweighs Apple’s $108 billion last year. Together these 19,000 entrepreneurs employ 16 million people in 110 countries across the world.

At the YPO's annual meeting at Singapore's Marina Bay Sands Hotel you can look out of the window and see thousands of ships entering the City State’s world famous port but inside the meeting the wheels of global trade are being oiled by people who could very well be the next big thing.